THREW THE STONES | downypaw

[SOOTSPOT]

He could almost guarantee that Wolfsong did not want him anywhere near the medicine den. The list of patients was long and miraculously did not include him, but the one-eyed creature had seemed busy with another that day, and Sootspot had taken his opportunity to slip through the gorse-lined tunnel and into the pungent room. If there was one thing he found himself loathing, it was not knowing, to be kept in the dark for so long was challenging, even if his Tunneler job prepared him to navigate such things. Cottonfang (Cottonpaw? He didn't know if he could call her that again) had kept him from his apprentice for a long time, now, Wolfsong did the same - with the absence of support elsewhere, Downypaw's absence was felt. Sootspot liked having cats around that agreed with him, or at least pretended to, and though the trap was not too dissimilar to one that Sootstar had fallen into, the young tom had convinced himself he would be smarter than her, already was in many ways, for he had not been imprisoned.

Yellow-green eyes settled upon a familiar figure in the moss, and a grieving smile danced upon his muzzle. "Ah... a shame it is, to see you back here so soon. I heard you were injured, but I had hoped I was mistaken," he mewed, loud enough for other nearby nests to hear, before he moved closer to Downypaw. 'You betrayed me too, how was I supposed to face my mother after you ran away?' It would've been his fault in her eyes, he knew it because he'd have believed the same. Thoughts grew baleful, burning hotter and hotter and threatening to spread to his words until he tempered them away with resignation. It didn't matter now, his loyalty and their treachery meant nothing, because they'd both ended up in the same place anyways - within a clan of fickle zealots. His voice lowered, not dangerously, just to avoid the attention of other patients. "It was a sprain before, wasn't it?" Eyes flittered upwards in a challenge, would such an illusion still be kept when he had seen her run faster than a rabbit? Or, would she find the need to apologise for lying to him? Sootspot shook his head as if dislodging gnats. "And now this..." A paw gestured vaguely to his face, where, when mirrored, Downypaw's bandages would reside.

It would scar, if Wolfsong deemed it worthy enough to keep her trapped. He almost hoped that would be the case, enough work had been shirked already by the other's 'injuries'. Thoughts briefly drifted to his siblings in their fractured state - Shrikethorn gone, Harrierstripe missing, Bluefrost imprisoned. If it were that easy to not think about them at all, then he'd have wiped them from memory, and started a clean slate without such bonds. His blood had always defined him though, and, try as he might, he couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty for splitting them so. He could not say the same when he reminisced about Downy's siblings. "How are you feeling?"

@downypaw


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[downyfur]

Downypaw's visitors were infrequent but many, as far as they considered "many" to be. They had Brightshine and Heavy Snow, and Pinkpaw and Finchpaw and Heathpaw, and that was enough to comfort them in their herb-choked prison. The other patients had visitors too, of course. Eavesdropping on their conversations was a pleasant enough pastime, especially when they could not be bothered to prod someone for a conversation of their own.

No particular longing to train possessed her, as it seemed to have some others. They loathed the idea of being a burden on their clan, yes, but as long as they were permitted to be, they would shoulder no guilt for it. Though they were happy enough to be a layout for the next quarter-moon, they couldn’t shake the small fear of never being useful again. It’d been so long since they had properly tunneled that they could feel the ability disintegrating in the dusty pits of their brain, the web of knowledge so carefully woven reduced to cobwebs cluttering the corners of their skull.

They press their uninjured cheek into the cool earthen floor, deep blues unfocused and straying towards the pinprick light of the tunnel entrance. Mind receding, they try to recite all they know about tunneling, but so far it only serves to put them to sleep. Suddenly, a shadow. Downypaw blinks back into the world, large ears pricking and then twisting away when she realizes whose it is.

Sootspot’s smile snakes across his face as he greets her. "Hello, Sootspot." Stomach tightening, they press it a little deeper into their nest, as though venom-green eyes would be able to see their nervousness through their flesh and pelt. ”It was for the good of WindClan,” they respond, the words just as loud yet ringing hollowly in their chest. Oceanic eyes glue themselves to Sootspot’s smile as he slides closer, trying to believe in the magnanimity it promised even as his gaze narrowed.

Like the flash of snakescale in the light, their mentor’s gaze flicks up to them. ”Ah…yes…” Downypaw keeps her ears forward and lips still, but anxiety still leaks through her averting eyes. ”I…had to,” she whispers. In the lowest of tones, they add, ”Cottonfang made me.” The ensuing squirm of guilt is repressed with an internal shout, of how it wasn’t their fault, they just followed along, or else they would’ve been killed too! Like Lilacstem and Larkfeather–they would’ve wanted her to stay alive, wouldn’t they? You understand, right? the wan outlines of their face plead in the darkness.

”I’m okay,” comes the normal answer to the normal question. ”How are you?” springs upon their tongue, but they hold it back. Sootspot would want them to realize how he was before they asked such a droll question. ”How…how are your kin?” they settle on instead.​

 

[SOOTSPOT]

Ears flattened at her reply. "Subjective," he mewed, for he had decided last moon to act against the good of his home. His own life had mattered more than preserving WindClan's status quo, he did not regret that he could regret (as opposed to being thrown to the worms), he only regretted how much could not be said. He reclined on his haunches, but craned his neck forwards to lean over the other. "Sootstar did what she thought was best for WindClan, as did Sunstride. What is good this moon may not be good the next, and I worry for your progress when you have been stuck in here for so long." Sootspot could not move without cracking the thin ice he was walking upon, all he needed was for someone to support it, but even as one of the most placid members of WindClan, Downypaw was difficult.

Her guilt was admitted on her features long before their words followed, she'd lied to him. A shudder ran down his fur, bristles spiking up like a passing wave. "Did she put her teeth to your throat?" Cottonfang wasn't the type. She was the type of use her words, to whine and to goad until she got her own way - his younger sister was annoying like that, he had done his best not to succumb to it. "You are like the child I never had, I want to protect you, but you make it difficult when you do not have any trust in me." The words were easy to say, too easy, for one who often deliberated before speaking. His yellow-green gaze averted to the earth as he retreated into himself. "Cottonfang blames me for this... lie that you two kept," he admitted, as if the fact wounded him more than annoyed him. What did she think he could've done differently if she was keeping secrets from him?

When Downypaw spoke of themselves, his posture was slowly forgotten, limbs moved in tentative, fluid motions like a snake no longer being threatened. When she asked of her kin, Sootspot's ashen brows raised. He was silent for a time, but before giving her the opportunity to correct what she had said, the Tunneler interjected. "They have lost two siblings to murder and a mother to madness." The promise of rebuttal came in further silence and a weasel's grin pulled taut by the questioning. He decided then he would not torture her more than he already had, she was perhaps the only reason why Sunstride had spared his life and that deserved some gratitude. "Nothing I could say could do their pain justice."



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[downyfur]

The good of WindClan is subjective. Downypaw supposes that much is plainly true, but their mentor could not possibly fault them for providing it as a defense. They had interpreted the good of WindClan for what they had done—for what Cottonfang had done—and if they were to be blamed in any way, it should be for the interpretation and not the action. What light the entrance permits is soaked up entirely by Sootspot's silhouette, glowing with its greed, so that they know nothing but the dimmest outlines of his displeasure. Their mentor elaborates, on the good of the clan through the gazes of a few, on their progress. They don't know whether it is tunneling or their mindset they have progressed in under him.

Sootspot's mood shift is so sudden it terrifies them. They knew it was coming, and even so it scares the light from their eyes. "Did she put her teeth to your throat?" Others would have. Sootspot must know; he must! As though giving into her stricken expression, some of anger seems to recede from him, and he falls back into disappointed stillness. It wasn't much better, but Downypaw would rather be guilty than scared.

Sootspot offers her a vulnerability, and she leans into it without thinking. They already have Brightshine and Heavy Snow, but here is Sootspot too, claiming them as his own. A child, his specifically. Children are precious. This they know even as one, a statement painted in the heroics and comforts that their parents have given them time and time again throughout their bloodied childhood. If they take nothing but one thing from this, it is that Sootspot prizes them, despite everything.

He withdraws farther, viperish gaze sliding from them to the well-trodden den floor in an unexpected motion. Downypaw lets their own gaze linger on him then, without the fear of his venom seeping into their own gaze as theirs politely brushes across his face. "She has no one to blame but herself," they volunteer in hushed tones. In this moment, it ceases to matter that she had risked her life for hers, that she had probably confronted and dismissed a thousand fears of her own without revealing them to Downypaw. All her concern lies in another chance to regain Sootspot's favor. "I don't know what you could've done," they whisper, knowing full well there had been nothing stopping him from being what Cottonfang was.

Her question had been perhaps too confident, bolstered by the relief she thought she offered. Sootspot is silent for so long she begins to worry that this was, in fact, not the right thing to say at all. His answer dispells some of it, though she remains troubled over the patently obviously answer. They should've come to it earlier, they think he implies. "I'm sorry," they murmur, after another pause. Their insides continue to squirm in the ensuing silence, unsure of what else to offer, what Sootspot would want from her, or what she even had to give. Their loyalty was the bare minimum, they suppose. "I'll be out of here soon, I think." They blink up at him. "I'll train harder. To...make up for...everything."​